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The Secret of Nikola Tesla


Editor’s note: Recently in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Točak—a weekly arts program on the Bosnian national television channel BHTV—dedicated an entire program to the work of Karim Zaimović, a young artist and writer killed during the siege of Sarajevo. One of Zaimović’s stories was the inspiration for a comic published in Massachusetts Review 55.3. What follows below is the televised interview with Aleksandar Brezar, who translated and adapted the story for MR (from 14.10 min-22.40 min). Translation by Una Tanović.
 

Haris Bilalović: Karim Zaimović was not only one of the founders of the magazine Dani but he also co-founded the cult journal Fantom slobode. He began writing The Secret of Raspberry Jam (one of the most interesting books to come out of the '90s and which has in the meantime been adapted into a play) without any serious literary ambitions, as a series of screenplays for comics and films.

And what is the secret of Nikola Tesla? To find out, we talked to Aleksandar Brezar, journalist and translator, who decided to adapt this story into a remarkable comic.

Aleksandar Brezar: Karim Zaimović knew the secret of Nikola Tesla. And we just channeled it into a new medium.

BHTV: This fantastic collection of short stories, The Secret of Raspberry Jam, is widely regarded as one of the most important books ever written in Sarajevo.  Thanks to the artist Enis Čišić and the translator Aleksandar Brezar, Karim Zaimović's story "The Secret of Nikola Tesla" has been adapted into a comic that was published in the journal The Massachusetts Review

Aleksandar Brezar: It was a challenge. Especially given that this was my first foray into comics. And for my colleague Enis Čišić, this was his first long-form comic. He'd published a few shorter comics already. So both of us approached this task with a great deal of... I wouldn't say trepidation... but certainly a lot of preparation, before sitting down to work on the comic itself.

BHTV: Karim Zaimović was only fourteen when he published his first article about comics. Already at that age, he was a serious fan of the medium and very knowledgeable when it came to the art form. What kind of responsibility came along with turning Karim's brilliant words into a comic, a medium he knew so well?

AB: It was a huge responsibility. A responsibility towards Karim's work of course. We didn't want to damage it or destroy it or make any mistakes. But also a responsibility towards all the people who knew Karim, his friends, his colleagues. They, of course, have an emotional attachment to the work he left behind.

BHTV: At the suggestion of Jim Hicks, editor of The Massachusetts Review, Brezar adapted Karim Zaimović's story into a comic. The following fact testifies to the importance of this journal: it has published ten Nobel Prize winners, twenty-three Pulitzer Prize winners, and nine United States Poets Laureate.

AB: When we first talked about doing this, about adapting one of Karim's stories into a comic, Jim Hicks, the editor of The Massachusetts Review, and I were considering the final story in the collection, Karim's story about his own death. It seemed the most interesting to us... Simply because it is so paradoxically true. But when we contacted his parents through one of our mutual friends, the incredible translator Ellen Elias-Bursač, to ask for the copyright, they said we could adapt any story apart from that one, because they felt very strongly about not showing his death in a visual format. So we sat down and gave it some more thought and I picked "The Secret of Nikola Tesla" because Tesla is my childhood hero. And also because he is currently very popular in America, where he is undergoing a kind of renaissance as a historic figure.

BHTV: For the comic "The Secret of Nikola Tesla," Aleksandar Brezar, Enis Čišić and Karim Zaimović (posthumously) have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, one of the most important independent awards for poetry and short fiction in the US.

AB: We have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, one of the most important if not the most important North American award for short fiction and poetry. So we are hoping that maybe we'll manage to win it for Karim as he has also been posthumously nominated. Given that the competition is very strongthousands of authors from across the US have been nominatedwe'll see.

BHTV: In doing their research, Brezar and Čišić consulted with a lot of people from the world of comics, as well as some of Karim's friends, so that they could accurately represent his experiences.

AB: I think that to some extent my generation, our generation, feels a certain responsibility towards Karim, because of what happened and because he left us at such a young age. 

BHTV: So what are the values that Karim nurtured in his stories and that they wanted to communicate through this comic?

AB: I think the most important thing was to show Sarajevo as a European city. Given how the West looks at Bosnia and Sarajevo almost exclusively through the prism of 1992-1995, it was very important for us to show Sarajevo as, first of all, a citysomething you don't see often in Hollywood moviesand also as a city with a very specific culture, unique to this part of Europe and this part of the world. That was our primary goal, especially in terms of the visuals and some of the city panoramas that we included. We also wanted to show events in Sarajevo from some earlier historical periods in a very positive and flattering light. To... I think I mentioned this already, but to make it look like postcards from the past.

BHTV: On some level, Karim is a symbol for an entire generation of unusually talented people who have, it seems, left us forever. We wanted to find out why we can't find such extraordinary people today. Are they still around or are they building some other countries around the world?

AB: Karim was a genius in his own way. And as such he was unique. But each generation has its own... I wouldn't say its own Karim Zaimovićs... but its own unique individuals, geniuses, wunderkinds. I think the problem currently is that there is no support coming from the state, no structural support to help people create something. I mean, it's practically impossible today to even publish a book and when you do so few copies are sold. If you ask me, what’s happening is a destruction of culture, a destruction that I doubt is accidental. I think it is being done very much on purpose.

BHTV: Is it possible to capture an individual such as Karim in any medium?     

AB: I expected a lot more criticism. Especially because I know that people in Sarajevo are emotionally attached to Karim Zaimović as an individual and to his work. I thought people would be much more... That there would be more negative reactions. But even his close friends have said very positive things [about the comic] and they all encouraged us to continue working [on this project].

BHTV: The comic "The Secret of Nikola Tesla" was in some sense studied as part of the curriculum at the University of Massachusetts.  

AB: A professor at their department of Comparative Literature (he was actually one of Will Eisner’s editors and Eisner is a famous comic book artists and the man who introduced the term graphic novel) asked his students—he has some 150 students—to read “The Secret of Nikola Tesla” as an assignment and the reactions that he received and that filtered down to me were incredible. I think it is much better and much more important for this generation (a younger generation, between 18 and 22, that is just now growing up and going off to college) to see Sarajevo as an European city with a fantastic history and not just as a place that experienced a difficult period in the 1990s. And I would be very happy if this was the first association people have when they hear about Sarajevo rather than something they may have seen on CNN.

BHTV: The tragic death of Karim Zaimović halted the full development and realization of an enormous literary gift. Still, the collection of short stories The Secret of Raspberry Jam has earned Zaimović a special place in the history of Bosnian literature.  


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